


In Sickness and In Health

by portraitofemmy, rainbow_marbles



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Marriage Proposal, wedding fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-29
Updated: 2015-06-29
Packaged: 2018-04-06 17:24:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4230456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/portraitofemmy/pseuds/portraitofemmy, https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainbow_marbles/pseuds/rainbow_marbles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“I just keep thinking there’s another couple kids like us out there, right now, who are just like we were. And now they’re realizing, they don’t have to worry anymore… because they can get married.”</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Sickness and In Health

They're curled up together on one of Tony's ridiculously huge couches, Bucky tucked into Steve's side and relaxed in the way he only rarely is, when the new breaks. They grin at each other as their friends whoop around them, stealing a chaste kiss that still gets them catcalled, but Steve can't bring himself to care. He's happy. He's ecstatically happy, and he can only imagine Bucky feels the same.

He gets dragged away a moment later, Tony needs help carrying champagne glasses, and Steve reluctantly goes because this deserves a toast. When he returns with two full glasses, Bucky is no longer on the couch. It's not unusual for Bucky to just disappear if things get too much. It's been happening less and less, but he never leaves without letting Steve know he's sneaking off, so something is probably wrong. Steve sets the two glasses aside and heads up to their apartment, hoping Bucky hasn't gone too far.

Nothing on their floor is showing any of the telltale warning signs Steve's come to associate with a Hydra related flashback. The knives hidden in the hall closet are still there when Steve checks, trying to figure out if he should grab his shield or not. And the lights are on in the living room, which doesn’t usually happen during a flashback, requiring too much initiative. Too much personhood. Curiously, he steps into the room to find a mess scattered across the desk, like someone had been rooting around for something.

"Bucky?" he calls out carefully, but there’s no reply, no other sound that might indicate where Bucky might be hiding. So Steve continues on, checking the kitchen and the dining room, before heading to their bedroom. He finds Bucky curled up on the floor by their bed, clutching a picture in his hand.

“Hey,” he says softly, and Bucky looks up, eyes red but fully present. He smiles a little weakly at Steve and tips the picture towards him. It’s the black and white one of him when he was at basic, the one that’s in every history book in America. It’s the earliest picture ever taken of him, the only one before the serum, and he’s not entirely sure why they even have a copy of it in the house.

"Had a sudden urge to look at stick figure me?" he teases, trying to lighten the mood even though he has no idea from what, and sits down next to Bucky.

Bucky gives him another weak smile and sighs, eyes going back to the picture. "Yeah I did..." he says softly, stroking picture-Steve's face with his thumb.

Steve’s at a bit of a loss, staring at his own scrawny image. He’d been worried, after the serum, that Bucky wouldn’t want him anymore in this new huge body. It was the same kind of irrational kind of fear, he knows, that Bucky fought with now, thinking Steve would only ever really love the older version of himself. Now, watching Bucky look at the picture, Steve feels a twinge of that old insecurity.

"I was so worried about you back then," Bucky says, his voice breaking a little. "You never wanted to be coddled and I understood that, so I tried not to let it show too much, but I was so scared."

Steve's eyes shoot up to Bucky's face and the anguish he sees there hurts him down to his core. "Scared of what Buck?" he asks quietly.

“That when you got really sick, sick enough to go to hospital, sick enough for it to actually kill you, you’d have to be alone. That I wouldn’t… that the hospital wouldn’t let me be there. I was just your roommate, right, your buddy? No way I was making medical decisions for you,” he trails off, brushing the picture with his thumb again.

"Oh, Bucky," Steve says and inches closer, wrapping an arm around Bucky's shoulders. He wants to say something encouraging, but he knows Bucky is right. He'd never even considered it back then, too stubborn to even acknowledge that his poor health might be his downfall one day, but if it were to happen, he wouldn't have been able to have Bucky there.

“I lied on my forms,” Bucky continues, still looking far away. “I listed our place in Brooklyn as Becca’s address. Put her as next of kin so you’d get my pay checks. Wouldn’t have been able to get away with listing you since my family was still alive. I remember… I remember worrying that something would happen to me, and you wouldn’t know.”

Steve opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. He had no idea, no idea that Bucky had been feeling any of this, and it feels horrible. He'd never taken Bucky for granted, but he realizes now that sometimes in his stubbornness, he'd made Bucky's life a little harder than it needed to be, and to find out now that Bucky was carrying all of this in him and never told him feels like a punch in the gut.

“I’m so sorry,” Steve says softly, leaning in to bury his nose in the hair at Bucky’s temple, which has been sliding out of it’s elastic for the better part of the day.

“It’s okay,” Bucky says, and he sounds genuine. “I just keep thinking there’s another couple kids like us out there, right now, who are just like we were. And now they’re realizing, they don’t have to worry anymore… because they can get married.”

"Yeah, they can," Steve says and clutches Bucky close. Bucky leans into him and they sit like that for a while, lost in their thoughts.

“Do you wanna get married?” Bucky asks after a minute. “We never talked about it. It was never an option, and once it was… never seemed like a priority when ‘will I remember you when I wake up’ was still a serious question."

"I do," Steve answers softly. "I've thought about it, before when you were still gone, and after, but it seemed like too much to ask for when just having you back felt like the biggest blessing."

“Let’s do it then,” Bucky says, setting the picture aside so he can curl fully into Steve’s arms. “It’s not like Banner’s gonna kick me out of Medical, anymore, but. Still feels right.”

"It does, yeah," Steve smiles and kisses the top of Bucky's head. "We could go and get a licence tomorrow and then just go to the courthouse. Unless you want to do the big party and the fancy dress kind of thing. I still have two left feet, but it seems a shame to not let you show off your dance moves on your wedding day."

“I’m lookin’ for a marriage, not a wedding,” Bucky says thoughtfully. “We can have a party with our friends, Stark should have a field day with that. But I think if we had a wedding, it would turn into a… Captain America thing. A political statement.”

Steve nods. "Yeah, you're probably right. I think maybe... we shouldn't tell the others either. I want them there, but I also want it to just be about us. So maybe we should just get it sorted and then tell them after. We can have a party with them then."

 

 

They slip away to the courthouse the next day, between a press conference of the Avengers’ public endorsement of the ruling and the scheduled tactical training session Steve insists on running anyway. (“Just because the government did something right doesn’t mean alligators aren’t going to crawl out of the sewers. Training is not optional.”) They’re both in dark jackets and caps, trying to attract as little attention as possible.

"You got the marriage licence paperwork right?" Steve asks for about the hundredth time. Bucky would be annoyed, but he's feeling a little antsy himself, double checking his pockets to make sure he's got his ID every so often.

"Yeah, all right here in the folder, where you saw me put them after I printed them out," he says, but it comes out more teasing than reproachful. "You sure you don't wanna change your mind and become a full fledged Barnes?"

“I dunno, Buck Rogers, are you sure?” Steve asks, and then smiles like a dork when Bucky snorts. “Course I’m sure,” he says more softly, leaning in to steal a soft kiss. Or that’s the plan, anyway, until the visors of their hats collide.

“Smooth,” Bucky says dryly, knocking up the brim of Steve’s hat to kiss him.

They're not the only ones who had the same idea, so there's a bit of a wait before they can get everything finalized and can step in front of a judge, but it's a good thing, more people means they're even less likely to stick out and draw attention. That's what Steve tells himself anyway as he tries to still his jittery feet as they stand in line.

“There’s no rush,” Bucky reminds him, after about the twelfth time he pulls out his phone to check the time. “I promise I’ll still want to marry you after the training session this afternoon. Though if you stick me with Vision again, I might have to make you sleep on the couch on the honeymoon.”

"I stick you with Vision because he's the only one you haven't figured out yet. But as a wedding gift, I guess I can let you off easy today and have you spar with Natasha," he says with a smirk and laughs when Bucky elbows him in the gut.

“I’m not even going to get mad about that, but I am going to tell her you implied she’s easy to fight.”

“So you want to be a widower?” Steve says darkly, just as a clerk comes out of the office to wave them in.

The whole thing has much less fanfare than Steve expected. It’s pretty much like filling out any other paperwork he’s filled out in this century. Still he keeps catching Bucky’s gaze out of the corner of his eye and grinning like an idiot. It’s not exactly a life long dream come true, because this wasn’t something they’d ever have dared to dream, but it’s still spreads warmth in his chest to sign his name next to Bucky’s.

He gets pulled into a kiss when the judge pronounces they're now legally married and he wrapps his arms around Bucky, who is clutching at him a little desperately. The kiss goes on probably a little too long, but the judge is smiling at them when they pull apart and he shakes their hands before they leave the room.

"Well, husband, do we have time for some celebratory lunch before pain and suffering, or do I have to go at it on an empty stomach?” Bucky asks as they exit the courthouse.

“I think we can probably feed you. I think that’s one of my marital duties,” Steve says thoughtfully, and Bucky snorts.

“You’re such a punk,” he mutters, pulling Steve in close for another kiss. He slides his right hand through Steve’s left, thumb absently brushing against his bare ring finger. They’d decided to wait on rings, rather than rushing out to try to find a pair before their court appointment, but Steve can already imagine the weight of it, how it will sit on his hand.

"Call me a punk all you want, you're stuck with me now," he says when the kiss ends and he turns them into the direction of a dinner they passed on their way to the courthouse,

"I've always been stuck with you, legally binding paperwork or no," Bucky says fondly and it's not even a second before they're kissing again. 

They don’t end up having much time for lunch.

**Author's Note:**

> We're a little late to the party with this, but unfortunately one of us works weekends. Happy marriage equality, and happy Pride! If you feel like hanging with us you can follow us on tumbr at [portraitofemmy](http://portraitofemmy.tumblr.com/) and [girl3wonder](http://girl3wonder.tumblr.com/).


End file.
